


some men just want to watch the world burn

by Venetia5



Series: these are dark times, there is no denying [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Criminals, Alternate Universe - Most Wanted, Alternate Universe - Voldemort Wins, F/F, F/M, Final battle doesn't happen, Fugitives, M/M, Undesirable No. 1, the resistance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-27
Updated: 2018-12-11
Packaged: 2019-08-08 10:19:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16427462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Venetia5/pseuds/Venetia5
Summary: Three horcruxes short and out of time, Harry, Ron and Hermione have gone to ground and split up in search of support and the horcruxes, each aiding the resistance in the fight against Voldemort's forces while searching for a way to destroy him. With their faces on Wanted Posters across the globe, the trio must hide while trying to fight and find a way to stop his reign of terror.But, six months later and no closer to defeating him, they and the rest of the members of the resistance must resort to drastic tactics to try and end the war, once and for all, no matter what it may end up costing them.Inspired bythese posters.





	1. Avery

**Author's Note:**

> I was inspired to write this fic by [these posters](http://pragmatique.tumblr.com/tagged/Death_Eater_Propaganda) made by [pragmatique](http://pragmatique.tumblr.com) over on tumblr (whose creations you should definitely check out). 
> 
> I was really interested in her propaganda and wanted posters that she created, and the way they looked a lot like the WWII propaganda posters, with their short, catchy "join now" slogans, and I started thinking about what the Harry Potter world would have been like if the final battle had never happened, and instead, they'd formed an underground resistance of sorts, and thus, this fic was born (about three years ago, and it's taken me until now to start writing it, so who knows what that means in terms of updates, but oh well).
> 
> I hope you enjoy this fic, but please head the warnings, and if there's anything particularly bad, I'll make sure to put warnings at the beginning of the chapter.

Avery had a problem. Two, if you wanted to be technical about it: his memory and his boss. In actuality, it boiled down to one thing: he’d forgotten to tell his boss about an important development in a case he’d been assigned.

He supposed he should have been glad that _His Lordship_ had so very kindly deigned to _personally_ assign this case to Avery. Secretly, though, he thought that it was his master’s way of simply ensuring that Avery fucked up yet another semi-important job so that he could be punished for it.

“Just tell him that you’ve been busy focusing on the latest trouble with the resistance case, and you were helping Rowle,” was the helpful advice that Nott had imparted before beating a hasty retreat back to his warm, dry office. “He probably won’t kill you for that.”

Avery, however, thought that this was unlikely to go over well with their master, and that Nott, a particular favourite and someone who had had very few fuck-ups in his career as a death-eater, would probably have fared better with this excuse than Avery would if he tried it.

Instead, he was left scrambling for some sort of explanation that wouldn’t lead to him being AK’d on the spot as he headed off towards his meeting, and he doubted that the truth would go over particularly well with either his master, or Yaxley, whom Avery suspected had been dripping poison into their master’s ear where Avery and his job performance were concerned.

By the Gods, did he hate that man with a passion.

He rushed down the hall, moving as quickly as he could without running, and attempting to look at least semi-dignified, though Avery knew that dignity would not do him much good when facing their Lord. He passed a few frazzled-looking ministry employees who seemed to be frantically riffling through a stack of papers that kept rearranging itself whenever they found something they were looking for.

If Avery had been a superstitious man, he might have thought that the ministry complex itself was cursed, and slowly but surely fighting back against those it perceived to be invaders. What with the way random doors opened and shut and some led off to nowhere, the way any files and paperwork seemed to rearrange itself to make it virtually impossible to find anything, or the way the plumbing blew up like clockwork every Tuesday afternoon, flooding the entirety of the Magical Law Enforcement Department, something which Avery and his colleagues ended up having to clear up like clockwork too, lest they wanted to face the wrath of Yaxley and his intolerable complaining. And they never had found those three officials who walked through that one particular doorway and were never seen again.

Scratch that, after the vanishing officials’ incident, Avery had most definitely become a superstitious man. He was still reluctant to pass through doorways in the Department of Mysteries for fear of not returning. Nott, of course, had chalked the whole thing up to defensive spells, but Avery still wasn’t convinced that Dumbledore and Scrimgeour and Moody, and every other powerful wizard they’d killed in their pursuit of power, weren’t haunting the place.

He snapped out of his morbid thoughts as he approached the Courtrooms. Honestly, why Yaxley and his lord had insisted they have this meeting here, he didn’t understand. The place creeped Avery out, and not just because of the two hundred or so dementors hovering only fifty feet above their heads, held back only by that vile woman’s patronus (a cat, which wasn’t particularly surprising, given her apparent love of the creatures as demonstrated by the hundreds of rather creepy pictures on the walls of her office).

As soon as Avery stepped into the forum, the temperature seemed to drop by ten degrees, and a shiver went down his spine. He had to consciously stop himself from tilting his head upwards to look at the literal manifestations of death floating above his head, and Gods, wasn’t that a terrifying thought. He congratulated himself for not fleeing the room instantly, as his instincts screamed at him to do.

_Good to know I have at least some good instincts left,_ he thought to himself as he approached dais where Yaxley and his Lord were waiting for him.

He waited for them to conclude their conversation and watched as Yaxley dipped his head in ascension at something their master had said. He was curious as to the words that had been exchanged between the two men, but he knew better than to eavesdrop. The last to have done so had found himself unable to hear anything except the gurgle of his own stomach after their Lord had found fit to remove the eavesdropper’s ears and shove them down his throat.

Avery’s own throat tightened at the thought, and he swallowed, trying to relieve some of the tension there, and looked down at his shoes, waiting for the two men to focus their attention on him. If he survived this encounter, he’d probably best invest in a new pair of shoes, he thought, noting the frayed laces and the way the sole of his shoes was peeling away from the rest of it. Perhaps that nice leather pair he’d noticed at that new ‘Rustic Robes’ shop that had opened up just off Diagon Alley. He’d treat himself, a reminder to enjoy life while he still could, preferably before his Lord decided Avery was a liability had Yaxley dispose of him.

Someone cleared their throat, drawing Avery out of his thoughts, and looked up to where Yaxley and his Lord were standing before him, noting the smirk that spread slowly across Yaxley’s face, like molasses over a cake. The thought had Avery’s stomach rumbling, reminding him that he’d missed lunch.

He diverted his attention away from Yaxley, and instead turned his gaze towards their Lord, who was looking at Avery like he was a fly that had been buzzing around and decided to land in his soup. Avery swallowed. Whatever this was about, it couldn’t be good.

“Ahh, Avery, how kind of you to join us,” his Lord greeted him as Avery stepped forward to bow and kiss his master’s hand, that strange, rasping voice of his still managing to make all the hairs on Avery’s arms stand up, despite how many times Avery had heard it.

His Lord gestured for him to sit on the tall, wooden chair that had been placed on the middle of the amphitheatre-like courtroom. He’d always wondered why the chair had been placed there in particular, but now, sitting in it himself, with his Lord, Yaxley, and a few of his fellow death-eaters surrounding him, above him, looking down upon him, and feeling very small and insignificant and powerless, Avery finally understood.

“As you all know, I do not normally bother to deal with _departmental matters_ ,” his Lord said, his words dripping with sarcasm, which elicited awkward laughter from those assembled in the room.

Avery kept quiet.

“However, it has come to my attention that there are some things that have been overlooked. For instance, our friend here, Avery, has shown an incredible lack of intelligence and a formidable amount of incompetence over the last few months.”

“I have, of course, excused him twice before, but I believe we have finally reached the point of no return.”

Avery wanted to protest, to argue, to proclaim his innocence. He knew that he wasn’t the only one in the department who had been vexed by the resistance and their plans, who had been fooled by Potter and his compatriots during their riots and break-ins and plotting. He wanted to point out that Yaxley had been the one to let Potter so carelessly slip through their fingers last time.

Instead, he kept his mouth shut, knowing that it would do no good. He’d been resigned to his fate the moment he’d stepped into the ministry that morning.

“And now, it seems, he has been consorting with the enemy. Correspondence found, in his desk, between him and the _mudblood_ resistance leader, letters detailing our plans, our strengths, our movements.”

Avery’s eyebrows quirked up in confusion. _What was he on about?_ Of all the stupid things Avery had done in his life, conspiring with mudbloods and traitors wasn’t one of them. He was fairly sure he’d remember doing something like that. He was aware that his Lord was still speaking, dribbling on about traitors and spies and some such nonsense, but Avery was more concerned with what he’d just been accused of.

Letters had apparently been found in his desk, and Avery thought of how easy it would be for someone, anyone, to plant letters in his desk. And he wasn’t sure how _he_ would be able to pass on any kind of sensitive information given that he hadn’t been trusted or allowed anywhere near anything that was even vaguely secret in content.

And suddenly, he realised that one of two things must have happened: a mistake had been made, unlikely as it was, or he’d been deliberately, and very cleverly, set-up.

He opened his mouth to respond, to say that there had been some kind of mistake, that he’d been framed.

The last thing he saw was a flash of green light.


	2. Hermione

_Hermione Granger would kill you as soon as look at you,_ were the whispers that ran rampant through the ministry, the gossip that spread round the tea urn in the refreshment room, that people whispered behind their hands in elevators and corridors and across their desks to their neighbour. The mudblood witch didn’t need a reason to torture you into insanity, until you were blabbing all your secrets, to sever limbs from your body or push the air from your lungs – the only thing that mattered was which side you were on, and even if you weren’t on a side, you were still more than likely to find yourself at the end of her wand, a curse ready on her lips.

 _And the worst thing,_ they whispered even more quietly, like speaking it aloud would be enough to summon her, like some ghost or demon summoned from hell, _the worst thing was that you wouldn’t even see it coming_.

Hermione resisted the urge to scoff as she overheard two witches spreading these rumours as they tarted themselves up in front of the mirrors in the bathroom. Did they honestly have nothing better to do with their time than talk about her as though she was the boggart waiting to leap out of the closet, all their worst fears bundled up into a single witch?

Of course, they weren’t exactly wrong in what they were saying, but the mere idea that Hermione had become their version of a boggart under the bed was laughable. But, Hermione mused as she straightened the hideous plum dress of the ministry official she’d stunned earlier that morning, she wasn’t nearly as bad Bellatrix Lestrange, whom she was often unfavourably compared to. In fact, when Fred had first told her that he’d overheard one wizard comparing Hermione’s acts to those committed by Bellatrix during the Dark Lord’s rise to power, Hermione had blasted him through the window. The others had quickly learned not to mention the rumours in her presence again, but she still ended up hearing them on the streets, careless words passed between careless witches and wizards who didn’t know better.

She had, of course, apologized to Fred later on, who would have understood why the words had hurt her, even if the scar on her arm hadn’t been visible at the time. Bellatrix Lestrange was yet another reminder of what they’d failed to achieve, of Voldemort’s continued reign, of her separation from her friends, and the seemingly impossible task she had been entrusted with. Some days she wanted to wipe Bellatrix Lestrange from the face of the earth. Other days she wanted to make the witch suffer as she had once made Hermione suffer. There would be no clemency for Bellatrix Lestrange if Hermione were the one to find her.

Hermione turned her focus back to the task at hand as she fiddled with the buttons of the ridiculous dress she had managed to squeeze herself into. She straightened her shoulders and walked out from the toilet stall, observing herself in the mirrors hanging above the sinks.

She always did this, it was a routine she’d gotten herself into, whenever she used Polyjuice potion. Observing her face, her features, the way she looked in the mirror, practising mimicking the quirks of the women she impersonated each time she infiltrated the ministry. She always did all of the prep ahead of time, but she could never resist looking at herself in the mirror, and seeing a complete stranger looking back at her. It was at once fascinating and strangely disconnecting. She could never quite describe how it felt, to wear another person’s face, to _be_ another person, even if only in appearance, even if only for a short while.

It was strangely freeing to _be_ someone else, to wear their face, to be able to walk around freely, without the threat of being killed simply because who, _what,_ she was. It gave her a sense of power that she’d never felt before. She _be_ anyone she wanted, _do_ anything she wanted, all while wearing another’s face. It was liberating.

Hermione straightened the tight, high-necked dress once again, pulled the charcoal grey bolero firmly down over her shoulders, and straightened her shoulders and back, trying to affect an air of confidence that she knew the woman she was impersonating, a witch working in the Muggle-Born Registration Commission, directly below the head of the commission. Directly below Umbridge, would have.

The thought of seeing that woman again made her shudder, and she berated herself for such a show of weakness.

She was Hermione Granger. She was feared throughout the ministry and the wizarding community. She could be anyone and do anything. And, if the fancy took her, she would destroy anyone who was in her way. Umbridge included. She would destroy them as they had tried to destroy her and those she loved, she would make them regret every word, every action, that they had committed against her.

She exited the bathroom, holding her head up high, and listened to the steady rhythm of her heels clacking against the black tiles like gunfire echoing down the hallway. She passed by a pair of witches who were frantically trying to sort through a stack of paperwork that kept spontaneously rearranging itself, and she fought to control the smirk that threatened to spread across her face. She’d have to remember to congratulate Fred and George on that particular charm they’d created. While she’d thought it petty at first, and not particularly useful, it had caused sufficient chaos to set some departments back by months, and, best of all, it had even affected Umbridge herself, so much so that Hermione had been witness to several meltdowns over the last couple of months.

Ahead she saw a tall man hurrying along, his black robes fluttering behind him, and a silver signet ring on his finger – the newest marker for someone of the sacred twenty-eight, as she had learned, most likely a death-eater. She vaguely recognised him, despite only being able to see the back of his head but couldn’t quite place him. He vanished out of sight as he rounded the corner, and she dismissed her thoughts of him and turned her attention back once more to the task at hand.

She strode along the hallway until she heard the methodical _thump-tap_ of the rows of workers at their desks creating posters and pamphlets that declared such things as “Perfect blood, Perfect society”, “Mudbloods and the dangers they pose”, and, her personal favourite, “Behind the destruction of our society: the Mudblood.” They had certainly got that right: Hermione was determined to destroy Voldemort and his death-eaters, whatever the cost, though she supposed that wasn’t really the message the poster was supposed to give.

She knew what to expect as she walked past the rows of busy workers, though she was still caught off guard when she saw the latest posters they were making, with her face emblazoned front and centre, and the words “Undesirable No.2” written above the picture, with the caption “Mudblood Menace” below, then her name and the list of her supposed “crimes”. She hid a smile when she saw that “impersonating a pureblood witch” had been added to the list. If only they knew.

She’d been reckless, that time, doing what she’d always berated Ron and Harry for, rushing in without a plan or backup, making things up on the fly as she had hastily downed an unfinished batch of Polyjuice potion and hoped for the best.

What had resulted was perhaps the best information and most solid lead they’d had in months, as well as a chase through both wizarding and muggle London that had left half of Diagon Alley blown to pieces, a double-decker in two halves, and several death-eaters and snatchers either dead or severely injured. Hermione herself had managed to escape with only a broken wrist, and a lecture from Remus and Kingsley on why running headfirst into danger without a plan or backup was a bad idea. She’d barely refrained from rolling her eyes at that, recognising it as the exact same speech that she’d given Fred and George only a month earlier, though she supposed Remus and Kingsley had appearances to maintain, and allowing an agent to wreak havoc with seemingly no consequences, would set a dangerous precedent.

Hermione cursed under her breath when she spotted Umbridge entering her office. Her initial plan had been to slip in and rifle through her drawers, knowing that since the witch whose identity she was _borrowing_ worked closely with Umbridge, her presence in Umbridge’s office would go largely unnoticed. That plan, however, had gone out of the window.

 _Time for plan B,_ she thought, slipping her wand forward from where it was concealed in her sleeve, and discreetly pointing it towards the stacks of pamphlets piled high on a desk at the side of the room.

 _When in doubt, cause chaos_ , had been the twins’ advice to her when she had first begun her infiltration missions for the order. It was certainly sound advice, as she had found out on several occasions.

With a few whispered words, and the subtlest movements of her wand, the pamphlets suddenly flew into the air, and began plastering themselves to every available surface, including the workers themselves. It was a spell she’d learned from Harry during their escape from the ministry, and for a moment she felt nostalgic, her heart cold and heavy in her chest. She ached with a longing to see him again, and Ron too. She _missed_ them.

She pushed those thoughts aside. It wouldn’t do to get distracted now that she was so close. She edged closer towards the door, the first plaque reading ‘ _Dolores Umbridge: Senior Undersecretary to the Minister’,_ and the one beneath, ‘ _Head of the Muggle-Born Registration Commission’._ Hermione scoffed at that, wondering why she hadn’t just gone ahead and put ‘Mudblood’ on the sign instead - after all, they seemed perfectly willing to use the word on all of their fascist propaganda.

When all those around her suitably distracted and not looking in her direction, she whispered a quiet ‘ _alohomora’_ and slipped inside the office.

The first thing she noticed was how dark the office was, a stark contrast to the pink extravaganza that had been her office in her Hogwarts. However, as she cautiously crept further into the room, she noticed that some things were still the same: notably, the goddamn cat plates hung on the walls. Hermione could remember their plaintive mewling driving her mad back in Umbridge’s office at Hogwarts, and she resolved to leave the office as soon as she possibly could.

She approached the desk that stood in the centre of the room, noting the gold gilding on the pillars in the room, and the large windows that looked down below onto the main atrium below. _So, Umbridge has retained her love of grandeur, at least_ , Hermione thought to herself, as she began to rifle through the drawers of the desk, careful not disturb anything on the desk, and to leave everything _exactly_ as she had found it - they couldn’t know that she had been here.

After a few minutes of fruitless searching, she huffed in frustration and slammed the drawer shut, flopping backwards onto an opulent desk chair.

 _Nothing,_ she thought, _not even a memo._

That was when it struck her.

The last time they had been here, Harry had searched Umbridge’s office himself. He’d told her of a locked drawer, in which all of their files, and the rest of the Orders’, had been filed away, along with various memos and appointments. But every drawer on the desk was unlocked, and she’d rifled through every single one. There simply _wasn’t_ a locked drawer.

She tried them all again, double-checking, making sure that she hadn’t simply missed one, but no, she hadn’t. All unlocked.

_So, she’s moved them, then._

She must have moved them after our first break-in, she thought to herself, as her gaze wandered around the office, looking for anywhere that the files could conceivably be hidden. But there were too many places, too many possibilities. Sometimes, magic made things so much _harder,_ and she doubted an _accio_ would work for the files or memos.

She rose from the chair and approached the low console table in the corner of the room, her eyes flitting over the objects on top, searching for anything that might give her a clue as to where the files were hidden - a key, an item that was out of place, something, _anything_.

And then her eye caught something that most definitely _shouldn’t_ have been in Umbridge’s office - a small, porcelain figurine of a dog, a British bulldog if memory served. Behind her, she could still hear the mewling of those infernal kitten plates. Why would _Umbridge,_ of all people, have a _dog_ in her office? It made no sense.

Hermione picked the figure up tentatively, wondering if, perhaps, there was some sort of charm that had been placed on it. She turned it over in her palm, examining it, but could find no discernible reason as to why the odd figure had been placed there. She’d foolishly thought, just for a moment, that it might be a clue. No such luck.

She placed the figurine back down onto the table –

– and the front of the desk popped open. Hermione jumped backwards in alarm, raising her wand defensively at the offending piece of furniture. But, upon closer examination, the desk hadn’t actually burst apart at all. Rather, it was a drawer, hidden from prying eyes, and Hermione surmised that it must have been hidden using magic, and that the dog charm had been they ‘key’.

She began to sift through the contents of the drawer, immediately recognising the files on the members of the Order from Harry’s description of them. She saw her own file, with the word “MUDBLOOD” stamped in bright red ink at the bottom of her photo. The rest of her file had words like “terrorist”, “murderer”, and “curse on sight”, along with descriptions of her numerous other crimes, longer than the ones on her wanted poster, though she supposed by now, there were too many for them to all fit onto a single poster.

She placed her own file back on the pile, and quickly sorted through the rest, looking particularly at the “Last Known Location” section for each of the members. She snorted when she saw that Paris had been listed as Harry’s last known location. She knew that he hadn’t been there for at least the last three months.

She looked through the others, skipping over the files that had ‘X’s drawn across the photographs. She couldn’t bear to look at them. Sirius, Dumbledore, Cedric Diggory, and all the others who had died since Voldemort had come back.

She placed the files back in order in the drawer and began to sift through the memos and appointments that had been stacked neatly next to the files, mentally discarding ones that read ‘Tea time with kitties’, and instead focusing on Ministry appointments. One memo in particular caught her eye. ‘Meeting. Malfoy Manor. Tuesday 17th, 9pm.’

Hermione memorised the note. Any meeting that took place at Malfoy Manor that Umbridge was being dragged to must have been important. She knew from listening to Umbridge herself that she couldn’t stand the place, nor the people in it, and that she actively tried to avoid Death-eaters whenever she could. She’d told Hermione once, when she’d Polyjuiced as the woman’s PA, that she found most of those who were death-eaters ‘ _distasteful_ ’. Hermione had wondered at the time what the woman would think if she ever met Scabior, or, even worse, Greyback.

She’d hoped that it would end in the woman’s throat being torn out.

She returned the files and memos to the drawer, and pushed it gently shut, before casting an eye over the office, making sure that she hadn’t left anything out of place, or that there were any signs that she had been in the office.

Satisfied, she headed towards the door.

And then she heard the voices outside, one a low murmur, a man’s voice, and the other –

 _Umbridge!_ Hermione thought desperately. She mentally catalogued the office, the shadowed corners and recesses, but there wasn’t anywhere for her to hide where she wouldn’t be discovered.

Cursing, she moved away from the door, watching in dread as the handle began to turn. She frantically tried to think of some excuse to explain why she was in Umbridge’s office, why she’d felt it appropriate to simply let herself in, when she knew of the woman’s dislike of people being in her private office uninvited.

The handle snapped back into place, and Hermione froze, her body tensing, waiting for discovery, waiting for inevitable fight that was going to take place once they began to question why she was there.

But it never came. Hermione realised that Umbridge must have let go of the handle, and she heard the voices retreating, both whispering anxiously, though she wasn’t able to make out the words. She could hear the man say something about the courtrooms, about someone called Avery, but then they moved further away, and the words were too indistinct for Hermione to make them out.

She sighed in relief once the voices disappeared altogether, and twisted the door handle slowly, cracking the door open slightly and peering through the small slither of space between the door and the frame, trying to see if anyone would notice her departure. She cast quick ‘notice-me-not’ before she slipped out of the door and headed down the corridor towards the elevators.

She was headed towards the floo network, pushing her way through the bustling crowds of people entering the ministry, when a voice rang out through the Atrium, stopping her in her tracks.

“Hello, sweetheart.”

She recognised that drawl instantly, it would have been hard not to.

“Still wearing that same perfume?”

Hermione turned slowly towards the source of the voice and saw him standing there in the middle of the crowd, staring straight at her. Hermione felt her heart begin to beat wildly beneath her ribs, her chest beginning to heave as she struggled to catch her breath.

He hadn’t changed at all, his hair still wild, tangled and windswept, bright red streak and all, and his face still somehow seemed to have that ever-present smudgy look, like he’d been rolling around in the dirt and hadn’t washed it all off. The clothes, too, hadn’t changed, and she wondered if it was out of choice, or necessity, as she doubted that the Snatchers were treated any better than they had been before the Dark Lord’s victory.

She knew that there were a great number of Snatchers now, more so than when she had been on the run with Harry and Ron – it was a necessity for the death-eaters and Voldemort to retain control, especially with pockets of resistance growing across the globe, and a very active network of resistance members in London itself. The Snatchers were tasked with dealing with those who resisted and rebelled against the new order, only those not deemed a big enough threat for the death-eaters to get involved. They tracked down members of the Resistance and brought them to the Ministry for a “trial”, though Hermione doubted any of them had ever been spared.

Hermione slipped her wand from her sleeve and into her hand as surreptitiously as she could, keeping her eyes trained on the man before her. By now, several people were looking in their direction, and Hermione knew that she would have to act soon, or risk being caught up in a fight greater than even she would be able to handle.

She slung the first spell at him that came to mind. “ _Immobulus._ ” She cursed as he deflected it, stepping back towards the floo slightly, hoping that if she were able to distract him, or immobilise him, she might be able to make a dash for the floo.

She deflected the spell that he fired at her, again moving further back towards the floo nearest to her. They continued like that for a few moments, both parrying and attacking, like an intricate dance that only they knew the steps to.

By now, Hermione was aware of the eyes on them. Everyone in the Atrium had stopped to stare at the duo, though, curiously enough, no one else stepped in to try and help apprehend her. She cursed as she deflected yet another spell. Losing focus, even for a moment, would get her killed, she knew this, had had it drilled into her when she had first gone on a mission.

Out of the corner, she noticed a group of black, hooded figures begin to file into the Atrium and head towards them, and she knew that she had outstayed her welcome.

She deflected a few more of his spells, holding off on any sort of offense, before releasing a frenzied attack upon him, firing spell after spell, forcing him to switch to defence, before managing to finally send him flying backwards with a quick _flipendo._

She raced towards the floo as fast as she could. She could hear the grates beginning to slam shut on every other floo, the noise echoing across the vast space, and she knew that she had only seconds before she would be cut off.

She put on a burst of speed, cursing and ducking as curses began to fly in her direction, ducked her head as she finally, _finally_ made it into the floo. She deflected the curses from the death-eaters who were still advancing on her, and spared one last look at the man who was staring at her from the floor, as though he couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing.

And then she disappeared.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm very sorry that it took me so long to update this, but this chapter fought me tooth and nail near the end. Factor in all the essay deadlines, plus my current chest infection and other recent illnesses, and writing has been virtually impossible, the last couple of months.
> 
> Please let me know what you think, comments and kudos mean a lot :)


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